Syracuse, NY, August 30, 2016 - New York Sea Grant brings ashore a boating and paddle clean and safe exhibit at the 2016 Great New York State Fair, which continues through Monday, September 5th. You can find 'The Water is Great in New York State' in the mini State Park on the NYS Fairgrounds in Syracuse, NY.

Also at the Fair: A buoy, on loan from the Great Lakes Research Consortium, is in the permanent reflecting pool and transmitting real-time data on air and water temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, and solar radiation level to a read-out screen in NYSG's exhibit tent.

Similar transmitting buoys are deployed as part of the Great Lakes Observing System in New York on Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, and selected inland lakes. More info on the buoy at www.esf.edu/glrc/buoys.

The exhibit also includes a 7-foot round boat dating to the 1970s; an inflatable paddleboard; kayak; a display of different types of life jackets, even one for the family dog; Clean, Drain, Dry invasive species management information; and the child-sized U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary mascot Coastie.

The Water is Great in New York State: Boat and Paddle Clean and Safe Exhibit is a collaborative by the New York State Parks Bureau of Marine Services, New York Sea Grant, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, and Great Lakes Research Consortium.

New York Sea Grant Coastal Recreation and Tourism Specialist Dave White
offers life jacket and water safety programs through the Discover Clean
and Safe Boating that has educated more than 650,000 boaters since 2008.
He is seen here on a paddleboard with a throwable flotation cushion,
an inflatable life vest, and Safe ‘n Sight decals on the paddle. Photo: Brian P. Whattam

On YouTube: Setting Up for the Fair, Promoting Safe 'N Sight Decals for Low-Sitting Boats, Canoes

As reported by Time Warner Cable, paddleboard enthusiasts, kayakers and canoers are invited to visit NYSG's exhibit at this year's Fair to receive free "Safe ‘n Sight" decals and one "If Found" decal for kayaks or canoes.

Safe ‘n Sight is a new New York State Parks Bureau of Marine Services educational outreach that encourages paddlers to place shiny reflective decals on their paddles to increase the visibility of their boats that sit close to the water surface.

"So many paddles are black and you're already low profile in the water so if you're already in a little bit of a chop a boat can't see you," says New York Sea Grant Coastal Recreation and Tourism Specialist Dave White. "So by having these, when you're hitting your paddle, and you're going back and forth when it comes up out of the water it reflects the sun. So they're going to see something, they're going to realize there is something in the water, they need to slow down, take action to make sure they're not going to conflict with you and your activities."

As seen in the video above, NYSG Dave White stopped by Watertown's WWNY-TV 7 News This Morning studios on August 24th, a day before the Fair began its week-and-a-half-long run, to talk with its newscasters about how our coastal research and education program was gearing up for the annual event.

Since April 2006, NYSG Dave White has been bringing Sea Grant's "message" to the morning masses at WWNY TV 7, a Fox affiliate in downtown Watertown, during one of the highest rated TV blocks in the "wake-up hours," the 6:30-7 am stretch. Sea Grant's 'five minutes of fame' - which potentially reaches around 10,000 viewers in New York's Jefferson and Northern Oswego Counties - has featured topics over the years such as boating safety, aquatic invasive species, diving in search of sunken wrecks, the dune and Salmon River stewards program, shoreline land issues, tourism, and marine safety.

Time Warner Cable News (TWCN) - part of a network of twelve 24-hour local news channels owned and operated by Time Warner Cable nationwide - began cablecasting as News 10 Now on November 7, 2003. Operating from its headquarters building in downtown Syracuse, TWCN has a huge coverage area, a 15,000+ square mile stretch of Upstate New York. To cover this large area, TWCN provides two separate program feeds - one to Central/Northern NY and another to the Southern Tier - and reaches some 600,000 subscribers across 25 counties. More at centralny.twcnews.com.

More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University
and the State University of New York, is one of 33 university-based
programs under the National Sea Grant College Program (NSGCP) of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NSGCP
engages this network of the nation’s top universities in conducting
scientific research, education, training and extension projects designed
to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our
aquatic resources. Through its statewide network of integrated
services, NYSG has been promoting coastal vitality, environmental
sustainability, and citizen awareness about the State’s marine and Great
Lakes resources since 1971.

New York Sea Grant maintains Great Lakes offices at SUNY Buffalo, the
Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark and at SUNY Oswego.
In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University
and Stony Brook Manhattan, in the Hudson Valley through Cooperative
Extension in Kingston and at Brooklyn College.